Can you complete your taxes in 1½ hours?
Posted on January 24, 2025

I logged into TurboTax, and it gave me the target of 1½ hours to complete our Federal tax return. This will be my third year with TurboTax, and I don’t think I’ve met the time targets before. I’m determined to hit that target this year. My big 1099 from Fidelity is scheduled now for February 8. I’ll tackle TurboTax soon after.

One thing I don’t like about TurboTax is that I don’t get a good display of my tax return until the end. I want to start with a picture of my return. It will help to make sure I’ve submitted everything correctly. My template may help you. I enclose two: Single filer here. Married, joint filers here.

Some details on using the template:

• I include the formula for the amount – and percent – of Social Security that is taxed. You have to manually enter the amount from the calculation. If you know your added income is much greater than your gross SS benefit, just use .85 times your gross SS benefit and ignore the calculation.

The calculation of the amount of SS that is taxed is a quirky one. The first distributions from your traditional IRA aren’t taxed. Distribution are taxed after roughly $15,000 of distributions + all other income other than SS (single filer). Greater distributions from your traditional IRA are then taxed and also increase the amount of SS that is taxed. Once you hit other income that is about 125% or so of your SS benefit, you hit the maximum of 85% that is taxed.

• I did not display my state tax return on the template. My file displays our PA tax return.

DISCLAIMER: I tried my best to be accurate on this, but I’m not a tax professional. This likely won’t exactly match your tax return from TurboTax, but it should be very close.

Conclusion: I want a picture of my final tax return before I start on entering my information into TurboTax. This post shows the basic template I use that you might find helpful. One is for Single filer. One is for Married, joint filers.